Chapter 31 — Self-Check Quiz

Twelve multiple-choice questions and four short-answer questions. Answer keys appear at the end. Use this quiz to identify gaps in your reading; return to the chapter for any answers you got wrong.

Multiple Choice

1. As of 2025, the foreign-born share of the US population is approximately:

a) 5 percent — a postwar low b) 9 percent — slightly above the postwar average c) 14.5 percent — historically high, comparable to the early-1900s peak d) 25 percent — an unprecedented high

2. The estimated unauthorized population in the United States is approximately:

a) 3 to 4 million b) 11 to 13 million, roughly stable since 2008 c) 25 to 30 million, having doubled since 2008 d) Unknown, with no credible estimate available

3. Approximately what fraction of the unauthorized population entered the country legally and then overstayed a visa?

a) About 10 percent b) About one-third c) About two-thirds d) About 90 percent

4. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (Hart–Celler) replaced an earlier system based on:

a) Pure family reunification b) Per-employer numerical quotas c) National-origins quotas favoring Northern and Western European immigration d) An open-border standard with no numerical limits

5. The annual cap on new H-1B specialty-occupation visas is:

a) 25,000 b) 85,000 (65,000 plus 20,000 for advanced-degree holders) c) 150,000 d) Uncapped — H-1B is demand-driven

6. The Department of Homeland Security's three immigration components are:

a) USCIS, ICE, and CBP b) USCIS, CBP, and DEA c) Border Patrol, ICE, and the Marshals Service d) ICE, CBP, and the FBI's Immigration Division

7. The immigration courts are housed administratively in:

a) The Department of Homeland Security b) The Department of Justice (the Executive Office for Immigration Review, EOIR) c) The federal judiciary, as Article III courts d) An independent commission established in 1980

8. The empirical literature on immigrant crime rates concludes that:

a) Documented immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than the native-born; undocumented immigrants commit crimes at higher rates b) Both documented and undocumented immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than the native-born c) Documented and undocumented immigrants commit crimes at substantially higher rates than the native-born d) The data are too noisy to support any conclusion

9. The 2013 Senate "Gang of Eight" immigration reform bill:

a) Was filibustered and failed in the Senate b) Passed the Senate 68–32 with significant Republican support but was not brought up in the House c) Passed both chambers but was vetoed by President Obama d) Was never formally introduced

10. The 2024 Lankford–Sinema–Murphy bipartisan border deal:

a) Passed the Senate on a strong bipartisan vote and was signed into law b) Was rejected by Senate Republicans after Trump-led opposition c) Was rejected by Senate Democrats over insufficient legalization provisions d) Was approved by both chambers but struck down by the Supreme Court

11. The Fourteenth Amendment's grant of citizenship to children born on US soil — including children of unauthorized parents — was established as constitutional doctrine in:

a) Plyler v. Doe (1982) b) Wong Kim Ark (1898) c) Mathews v. Diaz (1976) d) Plyler v. Doe's companion case, Texas v. United States (1982)

12. The CBO's 2024 analysis of the 2021–24 immigration surge estimated the federal fiscal effect over the ten-year budget window as:

a) Net negative by approximately $500 billion b) Roughly neutral c) Net positive by approximately $1 trillion d) Net positive by approximately $5 trillion

Short Answer

SA1 (~150 words). State three empirical findings on the effects of immigration that are widely accepted in the academic literature, and explain how each can support arguments on different sides of the policy debate.

SA2 (~150 words). Explain the political-economy argument for why comprehensive immigration reform has failed repeatedly over the past two decades. Distinguish this argument from a "bad faith" account of the failures.

SA3 (~150 words). Describe the constitutional doctrine of birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment, identify the leading case establishing its current scope, and summarize the legal challenges to the Trump-2 executive order on the subject.

SA4 (~150 words). Steel-man either the strongest restrictionist argument or the strongest pro-expansion argument, in your own words and in approximately 150 words. Identify the strongest single concern of the position and the principal writer or institution associated with it.

Answer Key

Multiple choice: 1-c, 2-b, 3-c, 4-c, 5-b, 6-a, 7-b, 8-b, 9-b, 10-b, 11-b, 12-c

SA1. Acceptable answers should identify three from the following: (1) Immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than the native-born — supports pro-immigration claims that immigration does not raise crime, but does not by itself answer the question whether any individual admission produces crime that would not otherwise exist. (2) Immigrants are net fiscal contributors at the federal level — supports pro-expansion fiscal arguments, while the state-and-local pattern is more mixed and supports restrictionist concerns about local capacity. (3) Immigration produces small aggregate wage effects with modest negative effects for similar-skill native-born workers — supports both progressive concerns about effects on low-income workers and conservative restrictionist concerns about working-class wages. (4) Cross-generational assimilation is empirically robust — supports pro-immigration claims while leaving open whether current rates exceed assimilation capacity.

SA2. The political-economy argument is that the activist base of each party — primary voters, donors, ground-game volunteers — opposes the bargain that centrist legislators of each party are willing to make. Progressives oppose enforcement provisions; conservatives oppose legalization provisions. Each base has effective veto power within its party's congressional caucus. The deeper version: the issue benefits each party electorally more in unresolved form than in resolved form. Resolution would deprive each party of a galvanizing motivator. This is a structural account, not a personal one. Members who personally favor reform face primary challenges from those who do not. The argument differs from a bad-faith account because it does not require legislators to want failure for venal reasons; it requires only that the electoral incentive structure rewards positions that block compromise.

SA3. The Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause provides that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens." The Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) interpreted "subject to the jurisdiction" narrowly — excluding only children of foreign diplomats, occupying enemy forces, and members of Indian tribes (until later legislation) — and held that the clause confers citizenship on virtually all children born on US soil, including children of non-citizen parents. The Trump-2 executive order purported to deny birthright citizenship to children of unauthorized parents on a contested reading of "subject to the jurisdiction." Multiple district and appellate courts have blocked enforcement, holding the order inconsistent with Wong Kim Ark. The Supreme Court has not yet taken a merits case. Most constitutional scholars across the spectrum, including originalists, find the Wong Kim Ark reading correct.

SA4. Sample (restrictionist version, ~150 words): The strongest restrictionist argument, in the tradition of Reihan Salam's Melting Pot or Civil War? and George Borjas's labor economics, is that current immigration policy serves the preferences of upper-middle-class consumers (cheaper services), educated immigrants (legal pathways), and employers (cheaper labor) at the expense of working-class native-born and working-class immigrants alike. The labor-market effects on similar-skill native-born workers, while small in aggregate, are concentrated on those with least bargaining power; the public-services effects fall disproportionately on the localities that absorb new arrivals; the rule-of-law concern is real and not reducible to xenophobia. The strongest version of the position calls for lower total numbers and stricter enforcement of legality, paired with a workable pathway for long-term residents who have built lives in the country. The strongest restrictionist writers do not call for closed borders. Sample (pro-expansion version): see chapter §31.7.2.